Saturday 21 July 2012

Kevin Ridgeway

Getting High and Watching Cartoons

cobwebs line the ceiling just above
the head in this dark, cavernous attic
pillows caked in dust, minds on a bender
of illusions and arrested development
singing children’s songs and puffing
from a broken glass pipe
blood dripping from fingernails
and into piles of brick weed
that stings the throat
and deranges the cultural pallet
all those memories of innocence
brought to this:
dirty slippers, a broken ego
afraid of the blinding sun
that peeks through the
tin foil over the window
smiling a sinister come-hither
that causes one to recoil
in terror, seeing double
from these dollar store
cartoons on a broken,
duct-taped VCR here
in the pit of squalor

Kevin Ridgeway is a writer from Southern California, where he resides in a shady bungalow with his girlfriend and their one-eyed cat.  His chapbook of poetry, Burn through Today, is now available from Flutter Press.